Pearl Harbor

Re "Explaining 9/11," Opinion, Sept. 11 Cara Mia DiMassa's concern about how much or how little she should share with her daughters about the 9/11 tragedy resonated strongly with me. My nephew, Welles Crowther, a young stockbroker and volunteer firefighter, became known as "the man in the red bandanna" thanks to his heroism that day. My niece, his sister, has written a children's book about him, and I am grateful to have been entrusted with...

United we stood Re "When unity was all-American," Column, Dec. 5 On a beautiful Sunday morning, I was listening to a football game with several other men when suddenly a special announcement interrupted the broadcast: "Pearl Harbor has been bombed. " We looked at each other and said, "Where's Pearl Harbor?" It didn't take us long to find out. In less than two months, we had all enlisted in the United States armed forces. Franklin D. Roosevelt said we'd never forget that day. Seventy years later, I remember it well.

Ninety-one-year-old Constantine Socrates Savalas stepped on the stage at Los Angeles Valley College's music recital hall and surveyed the younger faces before him. "I stand before you as a witness to the destruction of ships and destroyers at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941," said Savalas, briefly describing the surprise attack by the Japanese that killed 2,459 Americans and drew this country into World War II. PHOTOS: A date which will...

Visitor tips for Pearl Harbor --Because of security, no purses, backpacks, diaper bags, camera bags or other such items are allowed at the visitor center or on the memorials. Bag storage is available for $3. --Carry bottled water. --Dress comfortably and appropriately (no swimsuits). Be prepared to do some walking. --The center is open 7 a.m.-5 p.m. every day but Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. --More info: (808) 422-3300, http://www.nps.gov/valr

Some historic moments lend themselves to the techniques of fiction, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, is one of these, rendered with a novelist's eye in Ian W. Toll's "Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942" (W.W. Norton: 597 pp., $35). In the following excerpt, the award-winning author of "Six Frigates" paints the scene on that fateful morning as people went about their routines, unalarmed by the sound of airplanes in Hawaiian skies in the moments leading up to one of the worst events in U.S. history.

The 70th anniversary of the "date which will live in infamy" does not itself conjure up any sense of nostalgia, especially along California's coast. Nostalgia is for homesickness and sentimentality. The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor — "sneak" became the motivating adjective used by Americans of all ages — evoked immediate feelings of anger, commitment and fright, the latter particularly among little kids. At least that's what I felt and saw. PHOTOS: A date which will live in infamy That said, there is for me a deep sense of nostalgia for the instinctive American attitude during World War II — an attitude of unity, shared sacrifice and, yes, unconcealed patriotism.

In the first days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans emerged with a deeper, painful sense of community. Mourning begot a frenzy of patriotism. Miniature flags adorned jacket lapels and flapped from car windows, at least for a few months. People tended to the grieving, made heroes of firefighters and vowed to band together on airplanes to take down any further in-flight threats. And they did. Passengers and flight attendants on a trans-Atlantic flight successfully tackled Richard Reid three months later as he attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe.

Every morning, she climbed the wide marble steps of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga was not trained for this work. She was a homemaker, not a historian. But she had a lifetime of simmering anger and unanswered questions. By lamplight in the grand reading room, she scoured thousands of documents, inventing her own organizing system to keep track of the information she found. She brought home so many copies that she commandeered a bathtub and used it as a filing cabinet.

The family of Pearl Harbor survivor Arnold Bauer said in a statement Monday that they "thought he was in good hands" and trusted his caregiver. Bauer's caregiver is charged with felony counts of elder abuse, forgery, theft and false imprisonment. Bauer, 93, who has dementia and prostate cancer, is in the Veterans Affairs hospital in La Jolla. "We are deeply shocked and concerned about the care our father has been receiving," Bauer's daughter said in remarks released on behalf of the family.

They were barely men at the time, unaware of each other but baptized by the same fire. Paul Perrault was 21, a naval officer aboard the light cruiser Phoenix, anchored in Pearl Harbor's East Loch. He had just risen from his bunk when cannon-like blasts tore through the morning calm. Scrambling to his post in the gunnery, he saw a sky speckled with Japanese planes. Across the harbor on Ford Island was Seaman 2nd Class Anthony "George" Mark, 18, who narrowly escaped as a plane strafed his area and bombs plunged into nearby hangars.